Advocacy Update
September 2006

Burmese Refugees and Material Support
By Matt Wilch, LIRS Senior Counsel for Policy and Advocacy

The facts and profiles in this column are drawn from various publications of the Department of State, Chin Human Rights Organization, Harvard University, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, and International Rescue Committee. LIRS is grateful for these resources.

The U.S. “material support” policy was intended to keep terrorists and terrorist supporters from entering the country. But it has been so broadly interpreted and applied as to bar anyone who has given any support to any armed group, even one resisting a brutal regime that our own government opposes. This policy has loomed over refugees from countries with despotic regimes or civil wars. Consider Burmese refugees. They have already been through a lot. The Burmese regime has subjected them to forced labor, forced relocation, rape, torture, imprisonment, arbitrary arrest and the threat of extrajudicial killings. It has targeted them as Christians, pro democracy activists, or members of ethnic minorities such as the Chin, Karen, Kareni and Rohingya. Forced to flee, hundreds of thousands lead precarious lives in Malaysia (53,000), Thailand (470,900), India (49,600) and Bangladesh (150,000).

The Department of State (DOS) planned to admit 1,000 Burmese refugees from Malaysia and 9,000 from the Tham Hin Camp in Thailand in 2006. With two months to go in the federal fiscal year, only about 480 refugees have arrived and up to 1,350 more Tham Hin refugees may come by year’s end. The material support bar has been the obstacle impeding DOS from achieving its refugee protection goals.

Among the refugees who have been on hold in Tham Hin, an overcrowded camp with serious health risks and alarming social problems, is P—, a Christian pastor from Karen state. His “material support” included giving a hat to his cousin, a member of a resistance group opposing the regime. Because he “allowed” the group to celebrate Christmas in the village, Burmese soldiers jailed him and burned down his house.

Bil is a Christian farmer from Chin state whose life is still on hold in Malaysia. After he gave rice and vegetables to three visitors said to be members of a resistance group, soldiers beat him so badly that he remained hospitalized for 10 months. The abuse continued after his release so he fled with his family. He works part-time for the equivalent of $63-94 per month, lives in a three-room flat with 40 others, and has virtually no health care. Since Malaysia is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention, Bil and other refugees are frequently arrested and detained or forced to pay bribes. UNCHR reports that over 500 Burmese refugees have been in jail at any given time.

A DOS waiver issued in May has enabled U.S. rescue and resettlement for Tham Hin  refugees like P— who had previously been hindered by the material support provision. Forty percent of camp residents have sought resettlement so far, and over 80 percent of those—some 2,671 individuals—have benefited from the waiver. On August 30 DOS announced a similar waiver for other Karen in camps on the Thai border. This step provides great hope for the Burmese and for other refugee groups who face the same material support hurdle.

But these waivers are only a partial and imperfect solution. Although 81 percent of Tham Hin refugees were granted the waiver, the other 19 percent were found to be bona fide refugees but received no protection because they do not meet the waiver criteria.  LIRS applauds DOS, and encourages them to continue expeditious use of waivers, but we also urge Congress to do its part and provide the additional legislative fix that is needed for full refugee protection.

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